We are living in terrible times for women. Thankfully, our resistance to the global pandemic of sexual and domestic violence is growing. But this resistance is being curtailed by a concerted attempt to silence women – just look at the inexorable rise of non-disclosure agreements to gag women speaking out about discrimination or harassment.

Dworkin would never be silenced. Reading her piece Dear Bill and Hillary, published in this newspaper in 1998, makes me wonder how we could not have seen that a man like Donald Trump would end up in power, and that sexual abuse scandals would dominate the media.
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The visceral hatred towards Dworkin acted as a warning to women not to engage with a radical type of feminism. However, we need it more than ever right now. Rape convictions are as rare as hen’s teeth; revenge porn is a daily reality for many women and girls; and trafficking of women into the sex trade is endemic. One investigation into major pimping gangs in England found that police were happy to blame the victims for their fate. The soft feminism most prevalent today is inadequate for the climate of misogyny that women are being forced to endure. The focus, particularly of young and university-based women, on individual identity and lifestyle choice will not withstand the onslaught of the men’s rights movement.
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“Women will come back to feminism, because things are going to get far, far worse for us before they get better.”